Questions for TradeBolt Rep

[JangoFolly]

Hi.

I use IB as my broker; can TradeBolt submit OCO orders that are native to TWS rather than simulating them through tracking open positions and canceling unneeded orders once targets or stops are triggered? I would like this feature to help ensure a planned exit if connectivity between my software and IB is lost during a trade.

Looking at an MetaStock example on your website (it was a simple RSI strategy for ES), the symbol was referenced as quoted text within the indicator script. I understand that it's a simple example, but I would like to be sure that a more generic implementation can be used, by which a specific symbol is not embedded in an indicator script? For example, I might have the same indicator script running over 20 symbols, each with its own open chart. To avoid having a different script in for each symbol that I'm watching, can the TB implementation be set up to use the symbol local to the chart in which the indicator is utilized?

Thank you.


Regards,

William

 

[TradeBolt]

Hi,

TradeBolt does not use the native OCO orders of the IB API because TradeBolt is designed to fully automate your trading system. If we used the OCO feature, then the system issuing the orders to cancel/replace would not have knowledge of the OCO and could easily become out of sync. For example, a limit order of an OCO may be filled at broker and then the paired Stop order cancled by the OCO. However, the master system may actually have filled the Stop order and canceled the Limit portion. To avoid any possibility of this out of sync condition, TradeBolt follows all the orders of the Master system which is generating the orders. The Master system contains all the logic which TradeBolt follows. Typical Master Systems are MetaStock, TradeStation, eSignal, Excel. Then TradeBolt executes all orders generated by the master system.

However, if you wish, you can place a catastrophe stop loss order which rests with the broker. Then in case your internet connection is cut and your phone lines cut, and your cell tower falls down, you will have this stop loss order working. You would want to place such a stop order well away from the market and treat it as emergency stop only.

Turning to MetaStock, the TradeBolt API allows you to pass in any variable rather than hard coding the "Symbol" as a parameter. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, MetaStock does not provide any way to determine the symbol of the chart from their language.

One solution would be to pass the desired trade symbol as an input for the Expert Advisor.

Do you trade stocks or futures?